No-till on the agenda

The 15th annual Victoria No-Till Farmers Association conference will return to Moama on July 13 and 14 with ‘Regeneration Nation: Healthy Farms, People and Profits’ the focus of the two-day event.

With a host of international and local speakers, the event will include sessions on getting started with controlled traffic farming and transitioning to a disc seeding system.

A rainfall soil simulator from the United States will also appear at the conference, demonstrating the impact of 50mm of rain on soils under five different management practices.

Creator George Davis from Kansas will lead the demonstration using Victorian soils from a conventional system, minimum till and retained stubble, a system with stripper stubble and crop, one with stripper stubble and mixed cover species and one with stripper stubble, mixed covers and cattle.

Victoria No-Till Farmers Association executive officer Kerry Grigg said the demonstration would show it was not about how much rain you get, but how much rain your soils can hold.

The conference will also welcome international speakers Paul Jasa from University of Nebraska, who will discuss boosting no-till yields; New Zealand soil ecologist Christine Jones, who will focus on light farming and photosynthesis; and no-till pioneer and Nuffield scholar Blake Vince from Canada, who will discuss the important of biodiversity in cropping.

Victorian Farmer of the Year finalist Suzanne Lewis, Bordertown cropping and sheep farmer Ted Langley and Ardmona no-till irrigation farmer Fraser Pogue will also speak at the conference.